Madam President, Mr Secretary General,
ladies and gentlemen, I thank Madam President for her kind words,
and for her good description of my country’s stance and the way
in which we look to the Council of Europe.

The twin European organisations brought into being in the
aftermath of the second great war have at least two features in
common. The Council of Europe and the Community, now the European
Union, are both conceived as normative and both put faith in liberty
and forgo compulsion. The highly practical character of those two
pan-European bodies can be explained by the overwhelming trauma
experienced during the war and the considerable cathartic effect
of the almost unprecedented inhumanity of some of the concomitant
happenings. This moral charge was, in a sense, original and has,
sadly, perhaps remained unique.

Post-1918, it had remained mostly vae
victis. The losers were punished, but the basic underlying
assumption, that national interests were best served by the use
of force, was, if anything, reinforced. From 1945, however, it was
realised that the seeds of war were sown by evils that were not
solely the result of international rivalries and conflicts of economic
interests. The events that led to the war and the brutality with
which it was waged convinced most nations that power play was no
longer a satisfactory way of achieving peace through the balance
of might. Total war had created the awareness of the need for total
peace. One had to build again on deeper foundations; one had to
try to extirpate hate and prejudice; and one had to guarantee democracy
and human rights as well as the rule of law.

At the very basis of these two pan-European associations of
states, two concepts were seen to be paramount and innovative. First,
democracy, the safeguarding of human rights and the rule of law,
were seen as common European concerns. What happens in a particular
European nation state influences the well-being of the others. While
no compulsion was contemplated – indeed, free voluntary adherence
and free secession were the only imaginable method of association
– it was understood that a moral, indeed normative, imperative would
ensue from membership. The second concept was based on wisdom. The
more intense the mesh of collaboration and common interest, the
tighter would be the bonds of obligation towards the common ideals and
norms. If it was hoped that success in the cultural and economic
spheres would underpin further development, that hope was largely
fulfilled. During the decades since then, both the Council of Europe
and the economic institutions which have evolved into the European
Union have, to a large extent, satisfied the aspirations of the
founding generation.

The fields of collaboration have widened and, in certain respects,
intensified. Most members of the Council of Europe have now submitted
to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. This
voluntary limitation of the sovereignty of the various states vis-à-vis
their own citizens is not only novel but points towards a further transcendence
of absolute sovereignty as hitherto vested in the nation state.

The parallel existence of both organisations may have given
flexibility and elbow room for progress to be made by the pragmatic
solution to emerging problems, but the different criteria adopted
by the two bodies may at times have obscured the fact that the original
aim of the framers of the Treaty of Rome was that it should be as
omnicomprehensive as the Council. Perhaps in a few years the stage
may be reached when the present dichotomy will be resolved and a
more formal constitutional framework agreed.

Our Council of Europe has been responsive to the vocation
of embracing all the nations of our continent. The challenges which
every new member state has to meet to adopt the spirit and culture
of European unity vary according to a state’s passage through recent
history. Most can draw on a centuries-old tradition traceable to our
common background, rooted in the Judaeo-Christian, Greek and Roman,
medieval, Renaissance and Enlightenment ideas and values. Most have
some memory of the practice of parliamentary constitutional government
predating periods of dictatorship. The longer the absence of the
experience of free elections and alternation of government, of an
independent judiciary, guaranteed personal rights and liberties,
the harder would seem the task of assimilation into the smooth practice
of full democracy.

The change of people in power seen as non-cataclysmic; the
impartiality of the courts and the guarantee of human rights seen
as a matter of undoubted necessity; a free press and pluralism in
the media as essential agents of information and channels for the
expression of public opinion: all this has to permeate societies
that were for decades structured around the state’s omnipotence
and monodirection and in which liberty was not regarded as having
a social value.

However, one ventures to believe that such is the superiority
of democracy on the plane of civilisation that the thrust towards
the resolution of difficulties and the removal of the traces of
the former oppressive systems will prove irresistible and irreversible.
Elections alone will not heal the wounds, but experience has shown
that even the act of asking for a popular mandate and taking account
of popular opinion will have a great beneficial effect. As Ovid
said, Usus opus movet hoc.
One also invests some hope in the dissemination, through the channels of
academic institutions as well as through the unleashed energy of
the many-voiced media, of the great thesaurus of philosophy, political
theory and plain good sense to which thinkers and also common minds
have contributed in all European countries.

There is also the challenge of further development. Within
the countries of Europe – west and east – a welfare net has been
knit to protect against illness, accident or need arising from just
plain misfortune. Abject poverty, unaided and untreated illness,
unassisted needs, are no longer tolerable. In short, solidarity
has become an essential part of the totality of community living,
and not merely a virtuous option, with the advent of a welfare society
strengthening the welfare state. A community that does not guarantee
an education for all its citizens, medical assistance for all and
provision for maintenance for all in the case of need is deemed
in Europe as no longer civilised. This actuality is not, however,
part of the normative instruments of the Council. While Maastricht
provided a social charter for the European Union almost as a necessary
corollary of equal conditions in economic competition within it,
the Council of Europe, which also has a social charter, could consider including
this aspect of the state into a minimum requirement for membership.
It is true that liberty and equality preceded fraternity by sixty
years in the three-word compendium that revolutionary France adopted
as a motto. It is high time, however, to formally entrench the irreversibility
of the welfare state and consciously to recognise as indispensable
what was a common feature – no doubt also born of the war experience
– on both sides of the former iron curtain. The acceptance of community
responsibility for the education and welfare of all is, to my mind,
an acquis of modern European civilisation.

No single country’s model of political, cultural and social
structure is perfectly – or, in certain cases, even adequately –
adaptable to another. New democracies may, however, be tempted to
look towards a pattern that has the accolade of economic success.
One is perhaps entitled to describe as too raw or crude the type
of society that one observes in the apparently triumphant Asian
economic miracles. The mirages of quick development brought about
through the loosening of the ties of solidarity and legal guarantees
are as dangerous to the new democracies as the nostalgia that certain
leaders might have for strong action without the inhibitions and
counterbalances of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law.

As for providing models, the pattern that has been established
by the Council of Europe itself merits some extension into other
regions and continents. My country has proposed the setting up of
a council of the Mediterranean, because although we realise that
the area lacks the substratum of cultural homogeneity of Europe,
there are enough common ideas and norms of political behaviour to
render useful a freely entered into grouping exerting influence
towards conformity to even a bare minimum of the agreed standards.

Though still an aspiration, we dare express our determination
to persist with that proposal. A stability pact for the region can
be seen as a first step towards achieving such a council.

Another challenge that the Council of Europe has to meet is
that provided by the intercontinental relations that we have inherited
as a result of the extroversion that our Europe has shown throughout
previous centuries. No great land mass has remained uninfluenced
by our cultural and political outgoing. America, north and south, Australia,
and to some extent Africa, are partly European. Even for Asia, Europe
is a reference point. Happily, colonialism is dead but there are
too many lingering traces of an obsolete scramble for exploitative
influence. Perhaps a normative or ethical approach with a stronger
environmental conscience contributing thereto is also an achievement
towards which we should aim.

A signal contribution was made by European scientists and
researchers throughout the centuries leading up to the modern age.
This European prowess in the pursuit of knowledge should be a spur
to maintaining primacy. Technology has made scientific knowledge
useful and there is no gainsaying the global access to the ever-growing
and astounding performance of technology in the service of mankind.
We are challenged into persisting in the dedication to pure science,
to research and its possible application, resisting the temptation
of being dazed by the success on most planes, including the commercial,
of the latest technology.

The Council of Europe was and, we hope, will continue to be
a collective organisation for people. The dictum, I venture to say
dogma, that states exist for the benefit of persons turned out to
be of great importance when one saw the result of its denial and
the glorification of the state in totalitarian regimes.

A revolution has come about whereby the rights of every individual
person are seen as transcending even the sovereignty of the nation
state. A revolution has also occurred whereby regionalism and minority
cultures and ethnic groups are not seen as merely tolerable, but
as an accepted manifestation of subsidiarity and diversity. Let
no counter revolution occur, even in the face of the most upstart
and uncalled-for divisive movements. The challenge to the Council,
which now links so many smaller nations, such as mine, to the larger
European countries is that of advancing further into the realm of
greater equality. The Czech citizen, or the San Marinese for that
matter, has the same rights as the Frenchman or the German. The
establishment, operation and popular acceptance of the supranational
jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights is a great and original
advance in human governance. We should not turn back, rather we
can look forward to a further strengthening of every man’s right
to defence against abuse of power. We share ideals and we share
rights.

The glory and function of Europe in the world is that of spreading
the civilisation of the dignity of man – all men. Our extroversion
should not stop. On the other hand, our yearning for further internal
refinement should likewise not cease. Europe has a soul: a conscience
with a voice. This Council’s importance not only for the peoples
of our continent, but for those of the whole world, lies in its
unique ethical and civilising message.

Thank you
very much, Dr Mifsud Bonnici, for your most interesting statement.
Members of the Assembly have expressed the wish to put questions
to you. I remind them that the questions must be limited to thirty
seconds and no more. The first question is from Mr Eörsi of Hungary.

Mr EÖRSI (Hungary)

According to
the Malta-Cyprus formula, six months after the IGC finishes negotiations will
start with Malta. The same rules seem to apply for central European
countries. Despite some warnings that it may slow down your integration,
do you feel that we are competitors of your country in any sense
in the enlargement process of the European Union?

Mr Mifsud-Bonnici, President of Malta

No, we do not feel that there is
really competition. However, there could be complications. Linkages
that are not natural should not be forced. You will understand that
some countries may have difficulties which Malta, in its present
stage of development, does not have. We feel that every application
should be treated on its own merits and that there should be no
linkage and no conditioning. Have I replied to your question?

Mr EÖRSI (Hungary)

I should just
like to express my best wishes to your country, as I do to all countries,
for successful integration.

Mr Mifsud-Bonnici, President of Malta

I reciprocate with regard to your
country, sir.

Mrs OJULAND (Estonia)

As Malta is heading
towards membership of the European Union, what in your view is the
contribution that small countries can make to the Union and how
can small states benefit from it? I ask that question because I
also come from a tiny country.

Mr Mifsud-Bonnici, President of Malta

Compared with Malta, your country
is quite large. Contributions are made by people from small countries
and from large countries. We are separate human beings: everybody
has his own persona. Contributions are also made by nations. Malta
has a unique experience. It has suffered because we are at the crossroads
of the Mediterranean, but we have also been enriched by our history,
which is unique. For example, for a long time the Order of St John
was sited in Malta and eight European languages were spoken in Malta.
That has given the country a special flavour. In Malta, there is
a confluence of many interests and I doubt that any other country
in Europe has imbibed so much from so many European countries. Perhaps
we can contribute that and repay a little.

Mr JASKIERNIA (Poland)

Mr President,
you followed the discussion about the question whether or not Nato should
be extended to the central European countries. Would you present
your position on that issue? Do you envisage an alternative security
structure, different from Nato, for example based on the Conference
on Stability and Co-operation in Europe or another institution?

Mr Mifsud-Bonnici, President of Malta

We are not members of Nato; in fact,
our constitution contains a clause that precludes us from being
members of a military alliance. We are part of the Partnership for
Peace. We have had an experience of war in our area and we still
have, and will continue to have, a stake in peace and stability
in that area; but perhaps it is a stability which has to be established
in another way, and the Government of Malta is thinking of having
a stability pact between all the Mediterranean states, without any military
component as of now. The complications that might attach to a military
side of such a treaty in the beginning mean that it is perhaps not
prudent at this stage.

Mr DINÇER (Turkey)

Your excellency,
we observe with appreciation Malta’s efforts and dynamic attitude towards
increasing security and stability in the Mediterranean as a part
of the new European security architecture. What do you think about
the new role of Nato outside its region? What additional efforts
could it bring to the security and stability in the Mediterranean
region as a whole, especially when a more effective peace-making
function is needed, as in the case of the Nato implementation force
application in Bosnia and Herzegovina, without losing time as we
did in that case?

Mr Mifsud-Bonnici, President of Malta

The difficulty with the Mediterranean
area, the whole European structure, is that the lower side of the
Mediterranean basin is non-European, and the problems that attach
to that region are significantly different from those in Europe.
Nato was, I think, conceived in the era of the cold war and confrontation
between the East and the West, and it is now transforming itself
into an alliance, not against a threat from the East, but to assure
peace in Europe.

In the Mediterranean, the same conditions do not apply. Nato
is seen by some Arab countries as an alien, almost an enemy, organisation,
so it is difficult for Nato to perform the same role and the same
adaptations that it is assuming in the east of Europe. Perhaps Nato
should not be involved in the process of stabilising the Mediterranean
in the first instance. The experience in Bosnia and Herzegovina
shows that Nato has the military capability, but perhaps if we can
avoid even the possibility of military strife in the Mediterranean
basin, that would be the best possible line of action.

Mr MUEHLEMANN (Switzerland) (translation)

Mr President,
your country is probably the most important link in the bridge between
Africa and Europe. Can you imagine there being closer co-operation
between Europe and Tunisia? Could you imagine Tunisia being accorded
special guest status?

Mr Mifsud-Bonnici, President of Malta

Yes. I think that the difficulties
that we have in the Mediterranean area are partly the result of
internal issues in some of these countries in addition to the matter of
Palestine, which is still a difficult problem to be solved, but
which has been given a lot of attention by the western powers and
by most countries. It was on the road to peace, and we imagine that
that road can be continued. There is, however, a further threat
within most of the countries on the southern side of the Mediterranean
littoral.

Tunisia is in a privileged position in that it is the most
stable and has the best internal conditions in that part of the
world. It is a country where the spread of education has been going
on for a long time, where there is considerable economic development
and where there is interchange with the outside world because of
tourism and other factors.

Tunisia is perhaps the best place from which to begin, and
already it is partly looking towards Europe because it has a French
culture, which is very pervasive, and good relations with Italy,
and with many countries in the area, including mine. Relations between
Tunisia and Malta are very good. It would be very good if the Council of
Europe were to look towards Tunisia and see whether Tunisia can
enter into the spirit and practice of the Council of Europe.

THE PRESIDENT

As Mr Muehlemann
does not want to ask a supplementary question, that brings us to
the end of the questions.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici, I would like to thank you most warmly on
behalf of the Assembly for your statement and for the remarks you
made during the course of the questions.